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Sunday, December 20, 2009

Illnesses of the heart - imprudence

"Another illness of the heart is imprudence, which means that the heart is not even aware of what its true interests are. Take for example a very wealthy man in his late seventies. He cannot possibly use his wealth even if he tried. Yet he cannot stop being fully absorbed with making more money that he does not need."

Kryiacos Markides, A Mountain Of Silence, p. 64

As a psychotherapist I see this illness of the heart of imprudence all the time. No, it is not in the DSM-IV as an official psychiatric diagnosis, but perhaps it should be and the symptom of imprudence appears in many other diagnoses.

I remember seeing a slogan on the Internet a few years ago which said, "When enough is enough, that's enough."

Many of us are imprudent at times. Perhaps another manifestation of imprudence is greed, gluttony, lust, envy. All the "holics" are a manifestation of imprudence from alcoholic to shopaholic to workaholic to foodaholic.

Imprudence occurs when people are not aware of God, or have forgotten God, and things and activities become more important that being in love with God.